Letters to the Pink

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, February 21, 2010

Editor - I'm writing to express my disagreement with Aidin Vaziri's rating of Michael Jackson's "This Is It." My friend and I, both seniors and not Jackson fans, decided to see the movie one rainy day. We were both glad we went.

I found the movie gave us a window into the character and personality of this pop icon, while at the same time providing great entertainment. It was fascinating to watch this extraordinary showman control every aspect of the production despite his soft, almost whispery voice and gentle demeanor. His perfectionism shone, as well as his spiritual outlook.

It was a tribute to the makers of this film that they were able to capture so much of this enigmatic performer and to intercut the takes of the rehearsals so effectively. This movie was definitely worth a higher rating than the equivalent of the two stars out of five that Vaziri gave it. I would give it four.

Blue Ivy Had an All-Out Bidding War With Tyler Perry at AuctionWibbitz

Redwood City

The real heroes of black history

Editor - The Presidio's nod to Black History Month was an ad in the Pink section (Jan. 31) for a new film about triumphant black "buffalo soldiers" in the Italian campaign of World War II. But that film, like Spike Lee's badly scripted and poorly received film of a year ago, presents a rather misleading picture of the African American experience in World War II. According to military-history books, several black infantry regiments, led poorly by incompetent white officers, performed rather badly during the Italian campaign. But there were many black heroes in the late-1944 Battle of the Bulge, when a last-ditch German attack almost broke through the American lines on the Belgian frontier. Thousands of black cooks and truck drivers, assigned originally to non-combat units by a segregated Army, suddenly found themselves with rifles in their hands, and performed heroically in repulsing the German attack.

The term "buffalo soldiers" dates back to the frontier wars of the post-Civil War period, when several black cavalry and infantry regiments made up a large portion of the new "peace-time" Army. Cheyenne Indians, seeing the black troopers of the 9th and 10th cavalry regiments, compared them to the dark-skinned herds of buffalo that surrounded them on all sides. But the 9th and 10th cavalry staked their greatest claim to fame on their performance in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Faced with stiff Spanish resistance in Santiago (Cuba), those units eventually prevailed under the leadership of Col. John J. Pershing. Five of those black troopers received Medals of Honor for their heroism in the attack. But unfortunately, none of them received any mention in the newspapers back home. The headline writers attributed the victory to the commander of the (white) Rough Riders who lagged a half-mile behind the victorious black troopers - publicity seeker Theodore Roosevelt.

Pershing, nicknamed "Black Jack" because of his skill in handling black troopers, gained further fame with those units in the Philippines and on the Mexican border. But when given command of the American Expeditionary Force in France in 1917, he failed to organize any black combat units, perhaps because of pressure from the segregationist Virginian (Woodrow Wilson) in the White House. (Local note: While Pershing was stationed elsewhere in 1915, his wife and three daughters died tragically in a house fire in the Presidio.)